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123855-afk-timer-driving-people-away
Content ---- ---- A few things: -It's not an unpopular idea (I wouldn't mind if it was gone, per se), but having everyone logged in full time without doing anything isn't really a BS bandwidth problem. I wouldn't mind it being extended, though. -All you have to do is rotate your camera (left click and move the camera) and you are no longer AFK. It won't make you stand up. If you're at your computer and actually RPing, this should fix the problem. | |} ---- ---- This as well. | |} ---- The problem is more with what I mentioned about the /sleep command. This is a huge turn off for gamer couples/some rper's and even just regular old players. I have played plenty of games that have much lower funds than Wildstar that do not have this system and they are doing fine. I don't buy the bandwidth argument because simply put, most people still won't just afk all day anyway (for fear of overheating and such) so I don't think removing afk kick in pve only would cost the company. Whats the difference between someone afk and someone who actively plays 16+ hours a day? Not much. They are both the minority, and neither is hurting anyone. I could be wrong of course but like I said, plenty of games do this with less funding and they are just fine. I realize most people don't care to stay logged in permanently, but for some its a make or break issue especially in a pay to play title. | |} ---- I don't think you realize how much load that might take. The difference between someone staying logged in or someone actively playing might not be much different, but the difference between the status quo and the combined people who are actively playing and not doing anything is very different. A person standing still and not doing anything (in this case, not even talking) still makes queries to the server about positioning. That's another name that has to receive all the information happening in front of it, even if they aren't in front of their computer. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's not a negligible amount of server power just to have that many people online and not doing anything. Just because someone isn't doing anything doesn't mean they aren't a very active drain on the server's resources, bandwidth being one of them. But Cirinde's point would fix any other issues, especially for RPers, so that seems like a better solution. And, as I said, if you are at your computer, simply moving the camera (not even yourself) will bring you out of AFK. So if you are actively at your computer RPing, it still shouldn't be an immediate issue. Just left click and tap the mouse in a different direction if you're flagged AFK. That ought to fix any issues unless you actually want to be online for multiple hours while not at your computer. I can't say I see a lot of reason that should be necessary and that makes disallowing it (for the aforementioned reasons) a good idea for the development team. So just having the ability to type text reset your AFK timer would probably fix any issues I can see actually cropping up. | |} ---- It's not whether or not its a game breaking issue. Wildstar has a lot more to work on than just this. My point is that it does in fact turn some people off, and overall seems to be an obsolete function considering there are no server queues. In my opinion it is anti-community, anti-rp and ethically wrong. If I pay for a game, I should have full access to it. AFK timers, especially as short as they are here, feels way too restrictive. I agree that carbine has done a great job though. Wildstar is an amazing game, I feel so immersed while playing, which is kind of why it upsets me that there is such a restrictive afk timer. It really doesn't suit the grand scale of the game.. | |} ---- ---- You do have full access to the game. You can log in anytime, except during maintenance/patches, or power outages. :P I guess I just don't understand the 'reasoning' behind you wanting to be forever logged in. What's wrong with putting your character to sleep, logging off, and going to sleep yourself. It's effectively the same thing, isn't it? The only thing I can see that would interfere with your immersion, is when you log in, your character is moved to the teleport on your house. If they would fix this, it wouldn't be such a big deal. If our characters are in bed when we log off, they should be there when we log back in. | |} ---- It appears the reason for this is housing resets. It's why we used to fall through the floor when someone logged in, why you end up on your own plot if you log out on the Shadowcaster, etc. The housing code does not like people effectively ending up inside decor if it moves while they're logged out. | |} ---- Yes I was at the ff14 re launch and the same thing happened. Fortunately servers evened out (as they always do) and now there is still no anti-afk and its a non issue. I can understand at launch having this system, but after a while it just seems unneccessary. For example, Archage had afk-kick, but recently got rid of it due to not needing it to manage long queues. I'd say Wildstar is in the same boat at this point. | |} ---- Kind of like our nude characters on the log in screen? LOL Yeah I can see why they wouldn't fix it. | |} ---- ---- I explained it but I will clarify further. For roleplayers like my group, we like to bunk together (/sleep), find a spot that we always hang at when were not doing anything else, and in general like to have a permanent presence. It is the lifeblood of what makes our guild so special. This is the same thing for mmo couples. To be able to /sleep next to a friend or partner, or be able to run past "your spot" and see your afk guildies chillin' and knowing that permanent presence is there adds to our experience tenfold. Most people would say thats just weird or stupid, we should get with reality, but for us it is just something we love to do and is a HUGE part of why we play mmo's | |} ---- Um, they did add that to FF14 directly because of the queue. I see the point about typing resetting the afk-logout timer, but I cannot fathom an RP reason to be logged on interminably so that people can see that you are asleep. The fact that there is no queue to log in should mean that there is minimal time spent actually logging into the game if you are logged out by the server. People were staying logged in, but afk, in FF14 BECAUSE of the queue. The problem was getting exacerbated and was fixed by the afk-logout they implemented. | |} ---- I don't think it's stupid or weird at all. That actually makes sense to me, now. We all like to play our way and I don't begrudge anyone who plays differently than I do, except maybe for trouble makers/trolls. Thank you for clarifying it for me. :) | |} ---- Do a lot of RPers do this? I simply can't imagine that as many of them do this as you claim. | |} ---- You'd be amazed. Sometimes, the most innocuous things are really hard to fix. Like that aforementioned housing issue where we'd fall through the floor every time someone logged in and we were moving. It happened because every time a new character joined the instance, because it was completely player-made, it was redrawn in place. Sort of like what happens when a new person zones into the instance, only since the instance itself is saved on their rig, that doesn't redraw, just the players and enemy locations (that snap of lag). Since it had to pull the entire instance, if the characters got drawn before the floor, they simply were drawn into empty space. Seems easy to fix, but it took a long time because they had to (at the very least) write completely new code for the draw order. No, we have a hangout for ourselves. However, you have to understand that while you believe that the server strain is a non-issue, it absolutely can be. This may be possible, but it may not be. You'll find somewhat less sympathy from even roleplayers like myself for wanting to remain in-game while not even at your computer. Each player in this game eats a LOT of system resources, especially if you're on a housing plot and it's constantly being retransmitted for every login to a full load of players who might not even be there. For AFKing while RP chatting or for 10 minutes being the timer, I can understand those issues and don't think there are any potential mitigating circumstances. In this case, there are very good reasons for Carbine and NCSoft to not want players logged in full time even while not at their computers, so wanting to remain in the game while you are not at your computer doesn't necessarily overcome the server-side concerns. | |} ---- It isn't game breaking, but when you are trying to come into a game with a group of people that literally has been doing this for years, it's definitely a problem. We have to find a game that allows us to do what we've been doing, it's what makes us stick together. We are of one mind in that sense. We REALLY want to play Wildstar as most of us have already tried it and love it, but the afk issue is almost unanimous with us. I can imagine there are other groups out there like us as well that will pass up a great game because it doesn't suit the guild. Our problem? Yep, but I think it would be good for Wildstar to get rid of this system because it truly is a factor for people when they choose an mmo to play. | |} ---- ---- No problem =) | |} ---- This is the reason for the responses. | |} ---- OK then. | |} ---- First I've heard of it, to be honest. As Cirinde said, most of us would like to log back in where we logged out and have chat reset the AFK timer, but this is the first time I've ever heard of someone wanting to be logged in 24/7 to maintain an RP presence. For most of us, that would be somewhat misleading; it would imply we are sleeping 20 hours a day and are only awake while logged in. I generally play Seeger as though he spends the day working or handling his concerns as well, not sleeping the entire time. However, I can imagine it would make a guild look quite a bit more active than it was if everyone was logged in all the time, so it's possible this would be something an RP guild would want for recruitment purposes. | |} ---- ---- I don't think strain is a non-issue. I think it is a manageable even if you take away the afk kick. Now, the real question is, does this game have the funds to manage said strain? I know Archage and F14 have no anti afk and as far as 14 goes (I play it) there is no problems. I wake up most days still in game, and really I have hardly seen the servers crash or lag in general due to the load (they can be full some days) | |} ---- In this game, it's almost certainly personal server load. The double edged sword of customizable armor, colors, holomarks, houses, et al. is that anyone who sees them needs them beamed to them from the server. So the problem can multiply quickly in ways people wouldn't expect. If you double the number of people you see, you are increasing by orders of magnitude the number of functions the server handles, because every new person not only needs registered by every person in his vicinity, but they also need to register him. I imagine this is more of Wildstar's case. Macroing can be a problem, but that doesn't necessarily apply to Wildstar that I can see. If it does, I could see why chat wouldn't reset the timer, though. I simply can't see from my vantage where that would be. | |} ---- But how do you feel about the idea that the game itself may benefit from removing this option in that there would be more people subbed and playing? I'm of the belief that this is a factor people have when choosing an mmo to stick with, especially a pay to play one. | |} ---- In Wildstar's case, that's not true, though. FFXIV:ARR has singular servers, not megaservers (unless something drastic has changed since the last time I was on). That reduces their load quite a bit because they're not constantly spinning up new instances. You can already see how much more strain there is on the servers when you log into Thayd's Academy Corner in Entity. Very beefy rigs start to chunk because of how much information there is per character just to render them. | |} ---- Ah yes this is something I haven't considered. What exactly is the megaserver? Does it just have a bigger population cap than most normal servers? | |} ---- ---- ---- Not necessarily. It's more of a process than a population. A megaserver, as opposed to a normal server of (let's assume) equal size has a variable number of instances of the same zones. For example, let's say that you have a normal server. The people in Galeras are in Galeras, no question. If you walk into Galeras, you'll see them. In fact, you might then use multiple servers to split the world up. World of Warcraft, for instance, does this with their servers. There are individual servers for their continents, Outland, Pandaria, etc. They are subject to a lot of player load, so they tend to be smaller, but that isn't necessarily the case. However, this is why the server will top off and stop people from logging in. It can only handle so many players, generally near the maximum capacity of one of their continent servers. A megaserver, by contrast, might have many Galeras instances. As players zone in, it fills and fills, then spins off another instance starting at one again. More importantly, this means that your server setup is different. Players are send to instances which could be on many physical servers. What this means is that there is no lockout, the server theoretically has no upper limit. However, that also means that retrieving information and sending it can be a royal pain. A normal server, because it has a top end limit, also has a dedicated listserv (generally) where all this information is kept. That can't happen on a megaserver. For the benefit of not having the players divided between smaller servers, data retrieval and transmission becomes a lot more complicated. You have to have the entire megaserver's information ready for retrieval on a place where the "zone" isn't fixed. Which wouldn't be an issue, in the case of everyone kind of standing around staring at each other in a vacuum. Even in your specific case, it might not be an issue if the scale is small. However, imagine the server constantly having to drag and clear from the listserv for a few hundred (or even thousand, but let's say to be fair just a few hundred would actually stay logged in all the time) players just because one person walked into view. Totally worthwhile if that person is at his computer and playing (he needs to be able to see). But rack that up over sixteen hours for every single person that walks by, all for someone who isn't there? That's a lot of cost they don't have to account for right now that they suddenly would. In the end, it's not like it's an unpopular idea, don't get me wrong. If it can be done without issue, I'd be all for it. Personally, it wouldn't be a problem for each player (I don't necessarily care or mind where you're sleeping). But that can really start to spin the server as well as eating up a lot of resources unnecessarily when you take us all into account. So I could completely understand Carbine not going in that direction. For what it's worth, if they can, they should. I just don't think it's quite fair to say it's not an issue for them. They have to design for the worst case scenario, or at least keep it in mind. While 10 people not logging out doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things and doesn't bother anyone I know of, a few hundred in Thayd could eat an immeasurably higher amount of resources because of how the data compilation increases by factorials for every single user added. | |} ---- ---- Now that you said that, I have noticed this. I will go afk to take the dog out, all of 5 minutes, and come back to being logged off. Go make supper, can be gone for 20+ minutes, come back to still being logged in. Hmm, you may be right. This is the very first time I have heard something like this pertaining to WildStar. I have been around since CBT, so definitely new. | |} ---- love it. | |} ---- And it's not like the AFK timer can't use readjusting. Obviously, it gets short sometimes when it shouldn't. I mean, even if it has to be there, there wouldn't be a problem with making it a hard 20 minutes, or at the very least (if it's variable) doubling the time it takes to boot you. | |} ---- ---- ---- The AFK timer is time based, and very constant. However, not all actions a player can take resets the timer, which is why it appears that way. I can tell you that any kind of movement will reset it, while most forms of chat do not. | |} ---- ---- Any particular reason why the "say" channel does not reset it? Or crafting or using the markets? (AH/CX) | |} ---- I thought crafting did, but I haven't looked at that. The reason why chat doesn't is because of which server is doing what. The World server is the one that kicks for inactivity, but chat goes through the User server, and doesn't tell the World server anything about it. I need to point out, I'm not saying things can't change, i'm just telling you how it currently works. Changing this isn't my call, but I can explain how things do work. | |} ---- We appreciate that a lot, Pyaray. It would be nice if that could be raised. I think we're all in relative agreement, if nothing else, that talking should probably reset your timer. If there's a way to do that, we'd appreciate it. | |} ---- Thanks for the insight. AFAICT nothing but adjusting the camera or movement will prevent the "You are 'afk' warning." It's very distracting during crafting and market usage. Their UI's are so large that you have to move your mouse a significant distance so that you can wiggle the camera. Sending additional events triggered by keypresses and mouseclicks to the World Server as a keep-alive would be appreciated. | |} ---- Opening your inventory also resets afk timer. | |} ---- I've been active in the RP community for about 10 different MMORPGs over the years and been a RP guild leader in three of them. This is the first time I've ever even heard of this being a dealbreaker for an RPer--or, for that matter, even mentioned at all. In fact, off the top of my head I can't think of any of those games that I've played that didn't have an autolog in place after a certain amount of AFKing. So... no. Can't imagine that this is some kind of huge obstacle for the larger RP community, although of course individual subcommunities will feel very strongly about individual aspects of any particular game. | |} ---- Shows you what I know :p Thanks for the correction! | |} ---- ---- IMHO this is going on the weird side of things... | |} ---- Korea has also enacted gaming curfew laws for minors and connection throttling for playing for longer than 6 hours straight, because of gaming addiction. I don't have a problem with AFK timers, but I don't think people should be timed out if they're chatting, or otherwise active in a game. The problem with removing AFK timers is that if people are allowed to remain online indefinitely while AFK, it could cause queues or other problems. In GW2, for example, you can't create characters on some realms during peak hours because of the number of players online during that time. Besides, should people really be encouraged to waste energy keeping their computers running on for hours on end, in order to feed a psychological addiction? | |} ---- The morality behind it is irrelevant to the reason as morality is a cultural perception. Whether you think it's a good idea or not is irrelevant to the reason as to why it exists or is used. Korea's enactment to curb video game addiction is a standing of morality in of itself when you look at it. It's a problem of freedom, and personal choice being controlled by the government. Is that moral? depends on your culture and political affiliation and beliefs. Another reason why Korean/Eastern games don't have an AFK timer is because their internent connectivity infastructure is much more effective at supporting larger and smaller niche games on a 24 hour login basis as compared to the west. Games rarely get big enough to need them and even if they do the servers and internet service is easily able to handle the influx. The debate of the matter falls to a bit of a disconnect when you realize that the Western market has much more of a reason to capitalize on internet addicts considering we have one major advantage to the market that Korea/Eastern Asia/SEA does not. In Korea/JPN/China/SEA/HK owning your own PC is rare and seems illogical when you can find a PC bang, a place where there are a ton of equiped well maintained PCs in a location with gigabit internet and home amenaties and PC cafe's in Japan. You have little reason to own a PC in such places. Go and play at your own leisure rather than spending the money it takes to build a PC you'd need to properly play an MMO and get a dedicate high speed connection to do so. The Internet and server quality infustructure in Korea/JPN/China/SEA is far greater and more stable than in the west. We Americans/Europeans/Nordic/RU believe in owning our own PCs, building them ourselves and having our own station and place to enjoy our games, porn and media as we please. So at the end of the day, an American can leave their PC on 24 hours a day but most koreans don't own a PC nor care to. the issue with the West is that our internet infastructure is pisspoor and our server quality and estimations are always low and problematic so we need governing systems in the game to allow access at one point or another in high population situations. And issue that never happens in Korea. The AFK timer's moral choice behind it isn't really a matter of right and wrong but choice and culture, and what you want your game to be to the players. I come from spending my teenage and early adult years on Korean games, so I share the attitude of Korean gamers towards their characters, access to the game, and money spent and game play gotten out of it. However I live in the west and have a western view of owning a PC because PC Bangs aren't common or even viable here. The last time i played a game at a Pc Bang was before I was shipped off to basic training in early 2009. That place has long since closed and I own mutiple gaming PCs on my own. I can definitely express the fustration and culture shock it was to come to world of warcraft and get auto disconnected for the first time, it still annoys me to this day. So my view on the AFK Timer isn't something I shared, but I don't think it's worth sharing either because it'll never change in WildStars case I don't believe. It's a western game. I was just explaining why it's executed the way it was. Just remember that I played a role in Importing Prius Online, which if you do some research you'll find was the potential cause of an internet addicted couple letting their child starve to death so they could play the game. https://youtu.be/-C3kVqCi8Nw?t=9m10s See the image of the Green horned woman and the little girl whom stood next to her? That was my alpha test character, I took that screenshot. http://www.onrpg.com/boards/threads/180880-Prius-Online-graphical-display! I learned quite a bit about why the game was designed the way it was and why a lot of korean games follow these patterns. Developers were actually instructed by law to implement a "you have been playing for X amount of hours" notification that bled into other korean games(such as Tera), as legal measure. | |} ----